Shedding mechanism



Patented Jan. 6, 1942 V UNITED STATES PATENT, OFFICE SHEDDING MECHANISM. Xerus Migliora, Fairyiew, N.'J. 7 Application July 25, 1941, Serial-No. 404,006

'5 Claims. (01.13 59), I

a harness cords 4 depending from the lifters.

In the commonly used or Jacquard type of shedding mechanism for looms, besides the lifters, as hooks, for elevatingthe harness cords, the vertically reciprocated griff for raising the lifters, and the transfer elements,as plungers or needles, coupled with the lifters and adapted to displace them out of and into the positions Where they will be caught by the knives of the grid there are springs respectively urging said elements to idle positionsand a pattern mechanism for selectively re-pr'essing said elements and comprising a cylinder, and means to reciprocate it toward and from said elements and .an endless system of cards extending around the cylinder, each card being selectively punched so that, when the cylinder and cards move toward said elements, such card will selectively re-press said elements and hence the lifters.

' According to this invention I in the first place eliminate the springs and the means to support them. The lifters themselves are so formed that they exist normally in thestate to be caught, or it may be left uncaught, by the griff when it rises, but may be distorted to the opposite state. Again, instead of resort to the mentioned type of pattern mechanism I use a pattern chain which acts cam-fashion to distort the lifters, acting through suitable plungers as transfer elements operatively associated with the lifters for this purpose; the chain may undergo rearrangement of its active portions whenever the pattern is to be changed, thus making its maintenance much less expensive than resort to a system of punched cards, and the means to reciprocate the actual pattern part of said mechanism (usually the cards, but here the chain) is eliminated.

The said plungers are arranged to slide on a boarder wall lying generally horizontally, and this mayv serve tomaintain the lifters, supported by a bottom board, in upright and operative state.

In the drawing,

Fig. 1 is a vertical sectional view sufi'icient to illustrate, in connection with the'other figures, my improved shedding mechanism;

Fig. 2 is a section in a horizontal plane more or less below the griff in Fig. 1; and

i Fig. 3 shows, partly in vertical section and partly in elevation, a modified form of the invention. I

The fixed structure or frame may be of generally rectangular form, as in the case of the ordinary Jacquard, I being one of the usual two uprights at the front thereof or the side adjacent the pattern mechanism. 2 is a horizontal bottom board having openings at 3 to receive the is the mentioned horizontal wall or board for maintaining the lifters in upright state. 6 is a transverse "horizontal bar arranged above and close to board 5 at the front of the machine and having a function to appear.

1 is the griff, adapted by any well-known means (see, for one instance, the Cochran Patent No.

753,547) to be reciprocated vertically, it being in its depressed position in Fig. 1.

Each lifter 8 is in Figs. 1 and 2. a hook formed of elastic wire and generally U-shaped, one leg being here longer than the other and having a hook 8a. The lifters normally seat at the bends therein on the bottom board, each occupying an apertureexisting as a slot 50 in the upper board extending from front to rear of the machine and being of such length as to receive the rebent portion of the lifter fairly snugly, though preferably without "cramping or tensioning it, at least sufiiciently to prevent its fall by gravity to the bottom board from the position to which the grifi lifts it. Each lifter is confined by its slot against appreciable rotation around an upright axis. The

slotjextends forwardly sufficiently to permit the lifter hook 811 to overhang a knife la when the lifter is .relaxed :and it extends rearwardly only so far :(thus providing at its rear side an abutment for the other or rearward leg of the lifter) that if the forward leg is repressed so as to clear the knife the rearward leg is held by such abutmentagainst repression, the lifter as a whole beingcthus put in a state of tension so that when therepressingaefiortceases the forward leg will assume'its knife-engaging position shown.

Theppattern chain includes parallel series of links 9 connected by parallel equally spaced shafts or I'OdS' |U, and it may and usually will be endless; it also includes rolls l I journaled on the bars or bearingsv l0 and dispersed throughout the length and breadth of the chain according to any selectedp'attern. The chain extends around a cylinder {2 whose shaft [3 is journaled on a fixed axis in brackets such as M projecting from the frame of; the machine. This cylinder is longitudinally grooved at l2a at regular intervals, to wit, the same as the spacing of the rods or bearings of the chain, thegrooves'being developed to approximately the same radius as the rolls II which they are to receive. Ribs [2b alternate with the grooves, projecting sufiiciently to afford riding surfaces at their peripheries. The cylinder may be rotated step by step, or such a partial rotation for each complete rise and fall of the griff, by any well known means such as that employed in the usual Jacquard machine for rotating its cylinder step by step; each such partial rotation is equal to the spacing of the rods of the chain.

The transfer elements are shown as plungers l5 (preferably square in cross-section) each being arranged to slide between the board 5 and the bar 6 and between a pair of pins l6 which connect such board and bar; preferably, the board supports anti-friction rollers I! on which each plunger rests.

The lifters are arranged in oblique front-torear extending parallel rows as shown by Fig. 2 (and of course the slots 5a are correspondingly disposed) so that the lifters in each row are differently distanced from the pattern mechanism. Therefore the plungers for any one row of lifters are graduated in length, as shown. Each plunger has a rounded front end l5a adapted to bear against a rod H] or a roll ll of the chain and its rearward end is forked, as at b, to receive the forward leg of the lifter corresponding thereto. The effective length of each plunger (from the crotch of its fork to its rounded end) is approximately equal to the distance between the forward leg of the lifter, when relaxed, and that rod H] which at any time is horizontally alined with the plunger (the axis of the cylinder being here horizontally alined with the plunger). Each plunger, in part by portions of the fixed structure or frame and in part by its fork receiving a lifter, is confined to thrustwise movement.

Each time the cylinder undergoes a partial rotation, to wit, before the ensuing rise of the grifi, one of the rods Ill and hence such rolls II as may be arranged thereon, is brought into the plane of the plungers. Those of the plungers to which rolls (acting as cam portions) are not presented will remain in the positions shown by the first and third plungers appearing in Fig. 1, leaving the corresponding plungers in their normal condition, or so as to be caught and raised by the corresponding knives of the griff; but those plungers to which rolls are presented, as the intermediate one in Fig. 1, will be cammed aside and so repressed by such rolls so that the corresponding lifters are distorted, as the middle one in Fig. 1, out of condition tobe engaged by the corresponding knives of the griff.

In Fig. 3 a lifter is shown including two separately formed members, a body member I8 and a hook member IS, the latter being pivoted at to the former. They both penetrate the slot 5a below the pivot, the slot confining the lifter against appreciable rotation as before. The body member about fits the slot lengthwise thereof, but the hook member is appreciably narrower. The pivot is below the center of the hook member which therefore by gravity tends to tilt anticlockwise to be caught by the griff-knife, such movement being here limited by the inner end of the slot or by said knife; its movement in the opposite direction is limited by a stop 2| on the body member. The corresponding bar l5 engages the hook member below its pivot. Both members may be formed of sheet metal.

Having thus fully described my invention what I claim is:

1. In a shedding mechanism for looms, the

; harness-cord lifters seated on the bottom board combination of a frame including a bottom board having harness-cord openings and also including an upper guiding wall, harness-cord lifters seated on the bottom board and penetrating and movable up and down and guided by said wall, an up-and-down-movable elevating means for the lifters, a pattern means arranged laterally of the frame and confined to move in a definite upand-down extending path, and including cam portions arranged in up-and-down extending rows opposed to the respective lifters, each lifter comprising two upright parts one of which is shiftable relatively to the other toward or from the pattern means and normally urged in one direction and on shifting in one direction being arranged to catch on said elevating means, and means to transmit shifting movement from the pattern means to the shiftable parts of the lifters contrary to the direction in which they are normally urged comprising plungers engaged with the respective shiftable parts of the lifters and having portions thereof in the paths of the respective rows of cam portions, said wall confining said other part of each lifter against shifting with said shiftable part.

2. The combination set forth in claim 1 characterized by said lifters being each a rebent elastic unit.

3. The combination set forth in claim 1 characterized by each lifter including a body member constituting its said other part and an element pivoted to said body member and constituting its said shiftable part and beingv gravity-urged normally into position to catch on said firstnamed means.

4. The combination set forth in claim 1 characterized by the plungers being confined to thrustwise movement by the frame and the respective shiftable parts of the lifters.

5. In a shedding mechanism for looms, the combination of a frame including a bottom board having harness-cord openings and also including an upper guiding wall. having parallel slots arranged in parallel rows oblique to the slots,

and penetrating and movable up and down in the respective slots, an up-and-down movable elevating means for the lifters, a pattern means arranged laterally of the frame and confined to move in a definite up-and-down extending plane perpendicular to the slots and including cam portions arranged in up-and-down extending rows opposed to the respective lifters, each lifter comprising two upright parts one of which is shiftable relatively to the other toward or from the pattern means and normally urged in one direction and on shifting in one direction being arranged to catch on said elevating means, and means to transmit shifting movement from the pattern means to the shiftable parts of the lifters contrary to the direction in which they are normally urged comprising plungers engaged with the respective shiftable parts of the lifters and having portions thereofv in the paths of the respective cam portions, said slots confining the respective lifters each against displacement around a vertical axis.

XERUS MIGLIORA. 

